Seabirds and Atlantic Canada's Ship-source Oil Pollution

Download or read book Seabirds and Atlantic Canada's Ship-source Oil Pollution written by Francis Wiese and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronic oil pollution has not garnered enough attention in the media, government, industry, and the scientific community in the past, given the extent of the problem. [...] The degree of seabird mortality seems to be determined by the timing and location of the oil discharge and the life history strategies of the species affected (Burger 1993b). [...] Seabirds are the most conspicuous marine organisms and therefore have been used for decades as monitors of the health of the marine environment and specifically of the effects of oil pollution (Furness and Camphuysen 1997). [...] In comparison, Germany's and Denmark's rates are stable at around 47 per cent; in the Netherlands the rate has declined from 57 to 38 per cent over the last 20 years; the rate on the west coast of the United States and Canada is below 23 per cent; and the rate on the east coast of the United States was constant at 6.6 per cent between 1975 and 1983 (Burger 1993a, Vaitakus et al. [...] The port state is the country in which the ship is legally registered, and the coastal state is the country whose waters the ship was in when an incident occurred.